Jonah 4:1-11 The Idolatrous Prophet 30th May 2021

______________________________________________________________

If you and I were writing the book of Jonah there wouldn’t be a chapter 4

A million people repented! What more is there to say!

We would have expected the book to have ended at 3:10

Which says “When God saw how they turned from their evil way

God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them

Perhaps, at most, if you must have a Jonah 3:11

– there’s no such verse in the Bible of course but if you must have that

you could have: “And Jonah sailed back to his homeland rejoicing”

But that’s not the case / We do have a Jonah chapter 4

And the very first verse puts it bluntly / It reads:

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly / and he was angry”

God’s turning back from judging Nineveh / displeases Jonah greatly

Remember last week we saw that the revival at Nineveh was no small feat

Nineveh was the greatest city in the then-known-world

It’s like having the entire inner city of Auckland / including

the larger metropolitan / all the suburbs get down on our knees

And yet Jonah is seriously quite prepared to slit his own wrists

And right here / he gives us the reason for why he’s so upset

He said: “That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew

that you are a gracious God and merciful.”

He bore a deep-seated prejudice and hatred for Gentile people

He confessed that he fled to Tarshish in the first place

because he didn’t want to Ninevites converted spared

Strangely / he fled not out of fear that he would be ineffective

but out of the fear / that he would be effective!

Sinclair Ferguson in his commentary on Jonah says:

“I have met men who would give their right arm to see

what Jonah saw in Nineveh”

He says the privilege of being an instrument of God to bring an entire city

brought to its knees for God would be “sweeter than life itself”

Many preachers would sacrifice everything to be used that way

Jonah responds to the revival at Nineveh in the opposite way that God responds

When God saw Nineveh’s repentance / He relented from His judgement

When Jonah saw Nineveh’s repentance / he became exceedingly angry

God was slow to anger / Jonah was quick on the trigger

Jonah is all tied up in knots? / He’s “in a huff”

He’s pouting and sulking / He has a death-wish

Jonah isn’t the first to have a death wish

Remember Elijah / Sitting under a broom tree he asked God to take his life

Remember John the Baptist / He felt that way too / pining in prison

Eugene Peterson “Quarrelling with God is a time-honoured biblical practice

Moses, Job, David and Peter were all masters at it”

So Jonah quit / he left the city / He abandoned his mission

He should have stayed on to disciple the thousands of new converts

Instead / He builds a flimsy shelter from the scorching sun

One commentator rightly asks

“Were there no shelters in Nineveh? No homes for a prophet

who had brought such great blessings / Of course there were!

He has a ministry there in the city / but he becomes a spectator instead

He sat in the shade to see what would become of the city

He is still hoping that judgment would come

He is still hoping that God would zap these Gentile dogs

The Jonah of chapter 1 / is the prodigal son in Jesus’ parable

He turns his back on his father and runs away from his Father

The Jonah of chapter 4 / is the elder brother in the parable

When his no-good brother comes home / and the Father accepts him

the older brother is angry /he refuses to celebrate his brother’s return

The pouting Jonah sitting outside the mound

is the elder brother who sulks outside the father’s house

Sinclair Ferguson calls this a spiritual infantile regression / He says

Many of us respond like Jonah when we’ve been offended

We go into a kind of an infantile regression

We choose to remain on the fringe / we couldn’t care much anymore

and no matter what they do / we’re not going to be a part of it

But this flimsy make-shift shelter / wasn’t going to give him adequate shelter

So God sprouted a plant from the ground

And Jonah is very happy about the plant / v.6

This is the only time in the book Jonah was glad / There’s been much

that have happened before that should have made him glad:

* his deliverance from the fish

* the conversion of all the sailors on board the ship

* the massive revival of an entire city

He wasn’t particularly glad for all that

It took a small shade-giving plant / to make him happy!

Jonah is truly an enigma

But early next morning God sent a worm to destroy the plant

At about the same time / God sent a scorching East wind / the Sirocco

It was a wind of great sweltering heat and Jonah bore the full brunt of it

And again he becomes angry / and asks that he might die

Earlier Jonah wanted to die because Nineveh was spared

Now he wants to die because a random plant / isn’t spared

So God asks him / “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?”

And Jonah actually gives God reply:

He says “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die”

He’s angry enough to die because he pities the plant

How do we know / Well God Himself said so

V.10 “You pity the plant”

You know something / the minute he admits to having pity on the plant

the Lord has Jonah exactly where He wants him.

It is at this point / that God tried to rouse his conscience one last time

God says to him “You take pity on the plant / you didn’t even grow it

It just came up in the night / and dies the next day

But right here / there’s a whole city of people / 3⁄4 of a million people

and unlike the plant / these are people made in my image

Who will live forever / either in heaven or in hell

That’s just one plant / here’s 3⁄4 of a million people

You’re more concern about your own comfort

I’m more concern about where they’re going to spend eternity

Verse 11 / is intriguing “And should I not pity Nineveh that great city

in which there are more than a 120,000 persons

who do not know their right hand from their left?”

Most commentators take this to mean children

Children aren’t old enough / to know the right and the left

That may not be the most accurate interpretation

The Hebrew word for “persons” there is the generic word for human (adam)

It is not a word for “child”

Kenneth Taylor’s Living Bible got it right: ”And why shouldn’t I feel sorry

for a great city like Nineveh

with its 120,000 people in utter spiritual darkness . . . ?”

The expression / “not knowing their right hand from their left”

refers to an inability to make moral judgments

It probably describes people are so morally adrift

they could not tell good from bad / right from wrong

The Assyrians were sadistic and brutal

They did not seem to understand the most basic moral instructions

like: “Thou shalt not kill

It is sad that / to those who’re morally confused

the simplest moral law / has become indiscernible

And here / God looks at their moral confusion / and He pities the city

Nineveh may be cruel and evil / but there is a wideness in God’s mercy

God is glad / when the city repented

for He is reluctant to stretch out His hand to destroy it

Remember God tells us / that if only there were just

ten righteous people / in Sodom / He would’ve spared the city

The teeming 3⁄4 of a million people in Nineveh / was not simply

one huge indistinguishable blob of humanity in God’s eyes

Each individual soul was precious in His sight

He knew the number of hairs on the head of each one

And He had compassion on them

But my question is this:

Did Jonah not know all that before!

Why would a prophet need to be reminded of all these attributes of God

What seems to be the problem here?

Why isn’t Jonah the kind of prophet we see in all the prophets?

Obedient / faithful / and standing at their post / fulfilling their calling?

The question you and I need to ask is this: WHAT’S WRONG WITH JONAH

Why is Jonah / the Jonah that’s depicted here / What’s really wrong with Jonah?

He seems rather undiscerning / for a prophet of God

He’s not seeing / what he should have seen

How many times / has God been trying to rouse him up

* When the Phoenician sea-captain roused him from his sleep

he should have seen that he’d been running away

* When the Word of God came to him a second time

he should have opened his eyes to see God’s purpose for him

Notice how many times / God tries to get through to Jonah

Four times / the word “appointed” is used of God

* God appointed a fish / 1:17 / * God appointed a plant / 4:6

* God appointed a worm / 4:7 / * God appointed the wind / 4:8

He should have been able to discern from all this

that God is in his case / in his face / trying to rouse him

to what he is not seeing

Yet he does not seem to get it!

Is it because he’s just incapable to understanding Who God is

And what His desires are?

That does not seem to be the case / let’s not forget he’s a prophet

I can’t believe that Jonah’s problem lies in the fact that he’s a slow learner

I believe he knew all the attributes of God / and He understood

God’s desires and purposes for the people he is sent to

And don’t think that he needed to learn that God is compassionate

He already knew that

Did he not say “That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish

for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”

He seems to have everything right / He seems to have it all together

* He’s a called man / God called him / not once / but twice

* His theology seems orthodox

* He believed in the God of heaven / who made the sea and the dry land 1:9

* He believed that it was God who raise him from the dead / 2:6

He said / “But you Lord my God brought my life up from the pit”

* He believed that idolatry is wrong / He said “Those who cling to

worthless idols / forfeit themselves of the grace of God” / 2:8

* He believed that / ‘Salvation comes from the Lord” / 2:9

* He believed in a God who is gracious and slow to anger / 4:2

And yet for all that / Jonah is at odds with God

What seems to be the problem with Jonah

God has compassion for the lost / Johah has none of that

God is merciful / Jonah is not merciful

God is slow to anger / Jonah is quick to anger

God know great kindness / this man knows no kindness

God relents when wicked people repent Jonah’s stony heart does not relent

What seems to be the issue with Jonah?

I believe what’s wrong / is not what’s in his head / it’s what’s in his heart

He’s seems to get everything right / but only on the outside

He’s been living outside in / not inside out

He’s got the externals / but he hasn’t got the heart

And this / is what we must all be very afraid of

Having all the right beliefs / yet such spiritual poverty of the heart

There’s lots of theology / but no spirit / He’s right / but dead right

But what exactly is this matter with Jonah’s heart?

If it is what’s in his heart / that God wants to work on / what’s that?

It is this / Jonah has a divided heart

He serves God but he has another god that he serves

Anytime someone says “I’d sooner die” he’s saying

“I have lost the very thing that gives me life / hope / purpose and identity”

The thing we need to note is to whom is Jonah saying this?

He’s talking to God / He’s looking at the very source and life and hope

And he says “I have no life / no hope”

It should tell us that right here / Jonah is looking to something

someone other than God to give him meaning / and he’s lost that something

Philosophers have a term for this condition

Heidegger calls it angst / an existential alienation and despair

You’ve lost all connectivity with the very source that gives you

the deepest meaning and joy / your identity

So / what is Jonah looking to / to give him purpose and meaning?

What seems to be his most prized-possession?

It is his racism / his nationalism / his self-righteousness

It is the national security of his race and people

The English theologian Charles Ellicott identifies the following traits in Jonah

* selfish jealousy for his own reputation

* jealousy for the honour of the prophetic office * a mistaken patriotism

* Jewish exclusiveness

And Ellicott says: “something of all these blended in his mind”

And you know something! / Those are the traits of an idolatrous heart

Jonah’s ethnic pedigree has become his most prized possession!

It is not a sin to love one’s own people group

But when it turns into bloodlust

When you come to the point you want God to nuke other people group

your patriotism has become your idol

When Jonah came to see / that not only is the Assyrian power

not dismantled and crushed / but that on top of that

they’re just as loved by God / He lost it / he blew the lid

This reveals that he has another god in his heart

This is the reason why he could pray that great prayer the belly of the fish

and yet in just a few days later / say all the foolish things he said

There’s a word that runs like a scarlet thread right through this chapter

It’s the word “anger” / And it occurs six times / in this final chapter

God is using Jonah’s anger to help the prophet identify his idol

He says, “Why are you angry?” / “Do you do well to be angry?”

He’s saying, “Jonah, look at your anger. Why are you angry?

What’s the root of it? What’s the cause?”

He’s getting Jonah to dredge out the motive for his anger

He’s asking Jonah:

“What are you really living for? / “What is the ground of your hope?”

“What are you really resting in?”

In short / what God is getting Jonah to trace the idols in his life

Why is this word “anger” crucial in our text? It is this:

Your anger / is often an accurate indicator / of where your love liues

Believe it or not / your anger is a barometer of your love

Tell me what you’re most angry about / and I’ll tell you what you most love

And the deeper you love that something

the more ballistic will be your rage / when you lose it

When you’re angry / there’s always something you’re defending

Whenever you find yourself most angry / ask yourself

“What exactly is it / that’s being threatened here?”

“What am I defending?” / “What is at stake here?”

And what you identify that to be / that / invariably is who your god is!

Remember / We’re most angry / over what we love most!!

Your anger always helps you identify / who your god is

And Jonah has had several idols lodged in his heart

his racism / his nationalism / his self-righteousness

The same with us / The Bible says every single one of us have an idol

Romans 1 says everybody ... everybody ... lifts up something created

and gives glory to it instead of the Creator

And it is helpful to ask yourself / in daily practical terms / who your God is

And it is not difficult to sniff them out:

Your god / is what or who your heart daily craves and longs for

Your god / is whatever you sacrifice your time/money for gladly without hesitation

Your god / is anything / anyone / you think

is able to satisfy and nourish the longing in your soul

You god / is anything that would made you inconsolable if it were snatched

You god / is that person or thing your thoughts are preoccupied with

most of your waking hours

Your god / is whatever / whoever your heart clings to and depends on

for your security / comfort and happiness

Your god / is the reason you live / the thing or the person you will die for

Your god / is the person or thing you pine for / long for / thirst for

You may insist till you’re blue in that face that Jesus is your saviour

but in reality in actual day to day living is there something / someone

that you’ve got to have to be really happy and content

– some functioning saviour / something you really live for

– something that plunges you into despair when you lose grip of it

And whatever you idol is / it does three things to you

one / it gets you to put more value in it than in God

two / it blocks God’s grace from reaching you

three / it leaves you empty and miserable

But the brutal reality is this:

That thing / that person that you look to / to give you meaning

and hopefully save you / will ultimately not be there

when you finally needed someone to save you

Nothing / no one / outside Jesus can save you

If Jesus is not your Saviour / you have none!

It is perhaps for this reason that Ligon Duncan says:

“The whole bible is given to a full-scale assault on idolatry”

But sadly / Jonah / a prophet of God / had been idolatrous!

He looked to his racial superiority / his nationalism to save him

Was Jonah finally weaned of his idolatry?

In a sense / we don’t know for there isn’t a verse 12

The book ends with some kind of a cliff-hanger

Jonah is confronted with his lack of mercy and compassion

but the book ends / dangling right there!

And in a sense the book is unfinished

The very last mark in chapter 4 is a question mark!

Did Jonah reply to God? Did he return to seeing things God’s way?

Did he come to see that his / was a heart of stone / a merciless heart?

Did he finally dislodge the idol in his heart?

Did he go back to his home satisfied that he’d made peace with God?

A number of bible commentators / believe that Jonah did turn around

How do they know that?

Keller / argue that since it was not an uncommon OT practice to write

in the third person / this book is indeed Jonah’s autobiography

And indeed /the autobiographical information / points to Jonah as the author

If Jonah didn’t write this book / no one could’ve!

For nobody would’ve known the stuff

that Jonah went through / had he not tell us all that

The only possible way we know that Jonah was such a buffoon

such a racist the only way we could know that he put his foot in his mouth

with all that foolish talk in chapter 4

the only way we could know all that / is if Jonah told us

He does not hide anything from us

He exposes his disobedience / his defiance / his pride

his racism / his idolatry / he exposes all that

It makes him look bad

In fact he’s been having a bad press ever since he wrote it

He’s been called the reluctant recalcitrant runaway prophet

But what kind of person would not mind letting the whole world know

what a clown he had been!

It’s got to be

someone who has come to be so joyfully secure in God’s love

someone who finally comes to terms with the fact

that he is simultaneously sinful but completely accepted

someone who finally gets the gospel

The fact that he could write all this negative stuff about himself

tells us that he’s now freed / freed from his racism / his idolatry

He’s been purified / healed / restored / He’s found grace

Remember he says earlier that those who cling to worthless idols

forfeit the grace that could be theirs

He’s now found grace / He’s now freed

And because he’s freed / he’s humble

he’s not having to project a good image of himself

he’s not having to have to look good

and that’s why he wrote the book exposing his depraved heart

warts and all

Jonah came to himself / realised his selfishness / his racism / his idolatry

and repented / and went on and finished the work God gave him

And what a journey he had to take to reach where God wanted him to go

And the same today for us

In order to wean us from our idols / sometimes God has to deal with us

God will use whatever He chooses to rouse you up

Earlier on He used huge and loud ways to get through to Jonah

the scary missionary call / the turbulent storm

the confrontation by strange foreigner on the boat

that terrifying monstrous sea creature

Now / that’s a lot of agitation and upheaval

lots of swirling about / lots of noise to get through to him

Towards the end of the book God deals with Jonah in quieter ways

He used simple quiet things like the gourd and the worm

The reason God sends all these troubles to Jonah / is because

until you recognize what your idols are / they will debilitate you

God uses whatever providence He sovereignly appoints

He appoints the storms in our lives / sorrow / sickness / poverty

He appoints the gourds in our lives / the worms in our lives

the scorching east winds of our lives

He destroys the shade-giving plant of your life / stuff you look to for comfort

Your life-boats / things you rely on to stay afloat / to save you

things you rest on to give your affirmation and recognition

the material stuffs of life / the relationships / the accomplishments

You believe that these things will give you happiness

God knows better and sometimes He snatches them from you

If He’s rocking your boat / and rattling your cage

it’s just so that He can rouse you to see where you’re heading

All to shape us to be Christ-like

No way am I saying here that you have to love God perfectly from your heart

with no bad motives

That is absolutely not what I am saying here

You are not accepted by God on the basis of the purity of your heart

Instead you are to turn and trust

That means coming to see that:

you’ve been living for people’s affirmation instead of God’s affirmation

you’ve been looking at all these things to save me

you’ve been trying to be my own savior / and there’s no health in you

It has blocked God’s grace from reaching you

It has left you empty and miserable

Forgive me for that / I want to forsake them now

You’ve come to see now / that Jesus has lived a life of obedience for you

Jesus has taken your punishment for all your sins

And you are now accepted / because of what He has done

And that / is the glorious gospel / and that is what saves us

to the uttermost